Once again, Fakegf has suggested an unfamiliar name for our weekly brunch explorations.
What a superwoman…! Where does she hear about these places??
Barry
85 High Street
Northcote, VIC 3070
03 9481 7623
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And such a pwetty pwetty looking place too… with a smart fitout, white brick walls and sleekly styled woods. And I liked how the waitstaff donned neutral coloured aprons with bold polkadots.
Single origin piccolo $4.3 | Magic $3.8
They use Five Senses coffee beans here and the coffees were well made, churned out of a graphite grey Synesso machine. Fakegf’s magic had rounded notes with quirky hints of lipstick and a slight nuttiness to it. I grabbed a Brazilian single origin (Alice Estate) as a piccolo, it had a dark roasty punch with a powdery finish.
Calmer sutra soy chai $4.5
Fatbee got a soy chai latte, which was agreeably nice and mellow.
Portobello and enoki mushroom omelette, havarti cheese, truffled hazelnuts, toast $16.5
Here’s Fakegf’s simple-yet-winning dish of mushroom omelette on wholegrain toast. The smell of truffle oil was intoxicating and I had serious food envy.
Cucumber and gin cured ocean trout, freekeh, roasted cauliflower, pomegranate, coriander, shredded kale, soft boiled egg $17.5
I’ve been rather adventurous with my brunch dishes lately and chose a freekeh salad with cured ocean trout. I think the words ‘shredded kale’ sold me for this dish.
It was an alright dish, healthy in its own right… but the soft boiled egg was actually pre-cooked then served chilled and I thought the trout could’ve had less fishiness to it. Next time I’ll stick with cured/smoked salmon.
Brioche, pistachio mascarpone, rose scented raspberries, halva $15.5
‘Brioche’… that’s a word that always catches my eye. Even though I normally don’t do sweet dishes when I brunch, Fatbee always swoops in and saves the day as he’d often pick the sweet dishes from a brunch menu and I’d usually sneak a nibble when he isn’t looking.
He enjoyed this dish… it was different and not overly sweet. The airy pieces of crumbed halva were particularly good.
Here ends another enjoyable experience at a newly discovered cafe, thanks to Fakegf for spotting it. The coffees were good and the menu quite interesting. But one funny thing is… a secret part of me keeps thinking this place should be called “Bawwy”.
Doughboys
456 Queen St
Melbourne, VIC 3000
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We stopped by Queen Victoria Market on our way home and thought it’d be a great opportunity for us to visit Doughboys to sample its bright-and-plumpy looking doughnuts.
The doughnut shack is located up the stairs next to a bar (Fancy Hanks) with plenty of ample seating around. I assume this place becomes pretty busy in the evenings when the bar opens for business.
The display of doughnuts on offer made my my jaws literally drop with awe. And better still, they’re freshly dipped to order right in front of you!
GRIZZLY $5.8 Dark chocolate icing w/ Belgian chocolate coated almond praline
The deep dark colour of the grizzly really appealed to me as I’m personally a fan of dark chocolate. But biting into it, I realised it was more like icing with dark chocolate in it, rather than a pure dark chocolate dip per se. As such, the icing was on the sweet side but not to say that it did not have a decent chocolatey push to it. Not bad.
PBJ $5.8 Dip #1 Peanut butter Dip #2 Fresh blueberry jam sprinkled w/ roasted and crushed nuts
Fakegf picked the PBJ to share, and we agreed it’d be an awesome choice… what’s not to like about peanut butter? I like how our dessert preferences are so in sync. Once again, the icing pushed it into sweet sweet territory and I sort of wanted more peanut butter action in this doughnut.
But what about the bread itself? Doughboy’s doughnuts come textured in the classic American-style, where it’s actually quite dense and bready rather than the light, briochey-fluffy types that you see with Krispy Kreme. I personally don’t eat doughnuts all that often so this was quite a change to me, and its denseness made me think that it was thinking about becoming a puffed-up bagel. My companions prefer their doughnuts in this classic-style and they were happy, although Fatbee says next time he’d just ask for the doughnut itself without the dips.
Overall the doughnuts were good but not ‘wow’… and of course eating these freshly dipped doughnuts can be quite a messy affair. But never fear, the washrooms are just around the corner! Boys go into the ‘sausage’ room while girls can wash up where the ‘buns’ are…*chuckle*